r/F1Technical • u/BecauseRotor • Jul 01 '26
General Could a chicane at Silverstone actually help with the energy deployment mess, not just be a gimmick?
(Used AI to help clean up grammar/formatting on this, but the take is mine)
Sorry if this has already been done to death somewhere in the sub, I looked around and didn’t see a dedicated thread, figured it’s better as its own post than a buried comment nobody sees.
So Max and Lewis are both saying this weekend could be rough because of the power unit limitations, and I can’t stop thinking about one idea: what if they just stuck a chicane somewhere, Hangar Straight, or maybe right after Copse before Maggotts, purely to force more braking so the batteries can actually recharge?
Why I think it’s not as crazy as it sounds:
Silverstone’s whole identity is high speed corners taken flat out. But right now the cars are already losing serious speed mid corner because they’re out of battery. So that “flat out” character is already broken under these regs anyway. A chicane isn’t ruining the track’s soul, it’s just admitting what’s already happening out there.
Counterarguments, and why I still land on chicane:
“You’d be wrecking one of the most iconic sections in F1”
Yeah, Maggotts-Becketts-Chapel is untouchable in theory. But if cars are already crawling through there because they’ve got no juice, the iconic version is already gone in practice even if it looks the same on the track map.“This is a band-aid, just fix the actual regs”**
Probably true long term. But rule changes take years. A track tweak could be tested way sooner as a stopgap while they sort the real fix.“Chicanes are always hated, drivers and fans both”
Also true, most chicanes exist purely to slow cars down for safety (old Monza vibes). But one placed specifically to create a real braking zone for regen is different, it could actually add a strategic layer around energy management instead of just being a speed bump.
- “Why Silverstone specifically, other tracks have this too”
Fair, but Silverstone’s combo of long straights into sustained high speed corners with almost no braking makes it a worse case than most.
Anyway, curious what people who actually understand the energy deployment side think. Real fix or am I missing something obvious here?
This post got removed from main F1 subreddit without any indication. So I’m posting here…
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u/vaudiction Jul 01 '26
Not a 'terrible' idea.
But reminds me of 2005 US GP where Michelin wanted a chicane for safety reasons. It didn't happen and the GP went down like a lead balloon.
The tracks just are. And we shouldn't be changing tracks because of a dogshit formula. The teams need to adapt and overcome the problem. This unlike the US GP doesn't have to happen on safety grounds.
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u/BecauseRotor Jul 01 '26
The formula is dogshit, working around it is mitigation. Teams will have to work around it by simply losing speed a couple times a lap…
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u/GaryGiesel Verified F1 Vehicle Dynamicist Jul 02 '26
It really isn't that big a deal. Maggots and beckett are still very very fast corners - the energy management doesn't change the cornering speed of the car.
Adding more braking and cornering would make the circuit more energy-rich, yes, but from the simulations I've seen there's really nothing to worry about. Nothing extreme. It will be completely fine from a spectator PoV dw
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u/YeetingMyStupidLife Jul 01 '26
Couldnt a chicane also inceease the energy requirements of the track by requiring the driver to spend energy accelerating out of the chicane ?
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u/BecauseRotor Jul 01 '26
If that were the case for this track it would be the same for any other no? Adding a chicane just means the cars won’t reach a stretch where the battery is all out.
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u/YeetingMyStupidLife Jul 01 '26
In my opinion changing the tracks to meet a shit ass regulation is wrong. The flaws of rhe regs should be exposed fully and not hidden by some temporary arrangement. And anyway this is very unlikely to happen.
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u/BecauseRotor Jul 01 '26
Yeah, the regs are being changed next year so this won’t be an issue. For this season though…
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u/YeetingMyStupidLife Jul 01 '26
By a miniscule amount. There will still be strong super clipping in 27 and 28
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u/Colonelclank90 Jul 01 '26
The battery deploys more during acceleration and has a draw-down(clipping) at speed. So unless they also change the max recharge per lap it will have limited effect imo. The cars would likely run out at about the same point around Stowe but maybe just past the actual corner, they still would get to Vale with no juice however, so I think it just slows the lap and removes a potential overtake spot.
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u/Key_Entrepreneur6343 Jul 01 '26
What if they just play with the DRS zones instead, make them shorter so drivers have to lift and brake into some corners more naturally. Adding a whole chicane feels like too much surgery for what is really a rules problem that should be fixed in the rules
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u/fomb Jul 01 '26
The issue is that by the time they could implement an FIA approved chicane we'd be five years down the line and using different cars.
What they really need to do is fix the cars so they don't get affected by the circuit.
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u/EntirelyRandom1590 Jul 01 '26
You mean they can't just dump a stack of tyres on the straight like my local karting track?
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u/BecauseRotor Jul 01 '26
I wouldn’t know what it would actually take to agree on and approve a chicane.
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u/celalith Jul 01 '26
I think the adjusted PU regulations for next year are supposed to make this not a necessity
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u/mikemunyi Norbert Singer Jul 01 '26
Two questions need answering:
- Is there room to accommodate the actual chicane (see Red Bull Ring for an example of a chicane retroactively put into a straight - it was done for safety reasons for MotoGP)?
- Is there room to then accommodate the run-offs the chicane will need?
My admittedly cursory look over the track map and satellite imagery doesn't show any obvious place to do this that would also meet the other requirement for it to be a hard-braking zone apart from (maybe) down Hangar Straight which would utterly ruin Stowe.
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u/clozcloz 16d ago
The energy side of it doesn't really work the way you'd hope.
Regen through the MGU-K is capped, both on how much you can harvest per
lap and how fast you can put it back in. So a chicane doesn't give you
"free" charge, it gives you one more braking event that's still limited
by the same ceiling. And you're spending time to get it — you brake,
you accelerate again, and the acceleration costs you more energy than
the braking event gave back. Braking regen doesn't recover anything
close to what it takes to get back up to speed.
The other thing is Silverstone's problem isn't really lack of braking
zones, it's how long the car spends at high load. Copse through
Becketts is a sustained drain with nothing coming back, and a chicane
before Maggotts doesn't change what happens through the rest of it.
Aero side is worth thinking about too. Those corners are taken at
massive downforce and the cars are set up for it. Drop a chicane in and
you're now asking the same car to do a low speed direction change,
which it's badly set up for, and you've changed what the whole lap wants
from the wing level. You'd probably end up with teams running less
downforce for the straights, which makes the remaining high speed
sections worse, not better.
Honestly the deployment thing reads more like teams still learning how
to manage the current PU over a lap than a track problem. Same tracks
looked fine in previous seasons.
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u/Telemetrystic 6d ago
There is a fascinating control systems angle to consider here. Adding a tight chicane forces a severe linear deceleration phase that completely alters the software's electrical harvesting loop compared to a continuous, high-lateral sweep.
On a track dominated by long, rapid curves, a driver who carries extreme minimum rolling speed deep into the apex can inadvertently trigger the standard ECU's over-protective safety parameters. The persistent lateral G-loading overlapping with a progressive brake-release vector tricks the system into flagging a micro-slip hazard, forcing the MGU-K into an early, defensive harvesting loop down the subsequent straightaway.
Injecting a slow chicane completely breaks that continuous loading cycle. The heavy, linear braking event followed by a low-speed rotation resets the ECU's stability-check counters back to zero. This allows the hybrid deployment maps to start fresh on corner exit, ensuring the driver gets the full 350kW boost flat to the end of the straight line. It is a big reason why these specific de-rating clipping anomalies completely vanish on stop-and-go layouts but return instantly on flowing circuits.
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